I have been a closeted person for many years. my abuse first took place when I was 11. I remember the other older boys that I used to play with who took pleasure in fondling me and asking me to do certain favours for them. I also remember the taunting from those sames boys in public calling me a fagot and beating me up on some occations. I always was a pleaser growing up. I always tried to make friends with everyone. I never wanted to have someone looking down at me so I did many things without thinking about the consequnces.

Some of the abuse I dealt with was forced and more over I don't like to go into it. I remember being cornered in the locker room by a group of guys in junior high making advances at me and some touching me in my private areas. I remember sitting on the bus and having one of the guys who I though was my friend grope me and feel me up asking me to let him perform oral sex on me. There are many other times that I expierenced other forms of abuse that I didn't relise was abuse until I began therapy. I am trying to better understand my past and deal with it. I have masked allot of things that happened and it seems that they are coming to surface now in my life. I sometimes wished that I never remembered them. But it is my life and I have to deal with what I have been dealt.

I am married and have been for 5 years now. My wife knows of my issues with my sexuality and it has almost broken us apart. I have always loved women. I also have a strong attraction for men as well. My therapist says that since I had my first sexual expieriences with men that that is the cause for my attraction. But I do question that. Was I born this way? Why did the people who did what they did feel the need to choose me? Why can't or why couldn't I be a normal guy like the rest of the kids growing up? Was it my abnormality that brought on what I went through. I have had these questions floating around inside of me for months now. It is just now this year that I am actually acknowledging the abuse that I went through growing up. I don't know. But I do know one thing. It hurts...

So much of the time I wish that we as a society knew more about where sexuality comes from. I have an active imagination so I often imagine myself in hypothetical situations such as if we did know where sexuality came from. I imagine myself going to a testing center and asking them to look at my DNA and see if I have the gene that makes me predisposed to homosexuality. I do believe that homosexuality as a genetic component. However, nothing is really entirely genetic, not even inherited mental diseases like schizophrenia.

It would still be so much easier. If they say "yes, you have the gene" then I would feel secure that I really was gay. If they say "no, you do not have it" then I would know that my abuse confused me and made me feel that I was gay. My early sexual experiences, though, were with both genders, but I often wonder if I turned out gay because, as any other child, my inital gender models were my parents. From my mother, I learned that woman = scary, abusive, unloving. From my father, I learned that man = safe, caring, gentle. Although I was abused by men and learned to fear them, I think that these things were ingrained in my developing mind even before the SA and I often attribute this to the fact that I can only let myself be sexually/emotionally close with men. I have been with women but they are all photocopies of my mother.

I suppose if you are certain that you like women as well as men, you must make a choice. Do you stay with your wife, or seek out men? You may feel something lacking in your life but if you really are attracted to women then you should be able to be fulfilled by your wife, assuming you love her and find her attractive. If on the other hand you are not sure you like women at all then this might be an issue best explored in therapy...

I struggle with this too, although on the other side of the issue. I am about to enter into a marriage-like relationship with another man (we will be moving in together, and he has expressed interest in changing his last name to match mine) and while I do love him with all my heart I often wonder if he is just a father-substitute for me, as my father died when I was 18 and I miss him horribly. I find myself searching for the love he gave me and I wonder if I am trying to find it in other men. I don't feel attracted to women, but I know that I see my mother in every woman and this disgusts me. I wonder if I did not see her, would I be attracted to women? I don't know.

Sorry to make this post so long, and sorry to talk about myself so much. Just wanted you to know you aren't alone in the struggle.

_________________________And one day we will dieAnd our ashes will flyFrom the aeroplane over the seaBut for now we are youngLet us lay in the sunAnd count every beautiful thing we can see

Don't feel bad about about your post. I think allot about what you said is true. For me I think my attraction with men comes with acceptance and wanting to be loved by them and accepted by them. I myself don't feel that I would be comfortable in a same sex long term relationship. For me it would be hard. But I don't have issues with others being that way and feel your life is what you make of it. Growing up I always felt controled by my mother and I see the same controling qualities in my own wife now and in every woman I have been with. I think in ways that men offer me a that safe, loving armed peace that I don't feel I get from woman. I love my wife dearly, but at times I feel I treat her more like a friend than a wife and I know that is hard for her. I kinda feel sometimes as though I am A-Sexual and have no need for intimacy from anyone due to all the complications that come with it for me. But I feel that my wife (god bless her) is worth it to deal with those things. She like me has suffered SA and has other issues mentally as do I. She has been my rock when others thought I was crazy. In the male department, I am missing that feeling of belonging. I have male friends, none gay. But I always feel like such an outsider around other men. I often feel like a woman when among them. Not that I am attracted to them, but I feel as if they can tell that I am bi. None of them know about me and I wouldn't tell them for fear of loosing my friendships, but I am not sure how I am to feel around them. I pray one day I can deal with this all better...

Emmanuel bro, my SA came from my cousin, 3 years older than me. I know what it is like to have someone so close to your own age to abuse you, I was in denial that it was SA because of this. My cousin also would make fun of me in front of my other cousins after the fact, calling me "gay" and a "faggot" and telling them that I wanted to do things with him. I also know what it is like to do things without thinking of the consequences, mostly because I didn't know what the consequences were!

Now I'm 20 and I'm beginning to deal with all of this. First was realizing that what happened to me was SA. Now I am figuring out that what happened was not my fault. I'm starting to talk about my behavior now and how many of my frustrating habits are symptoms of the SA. As I learn more and more what feelings and behaviors are the results of SA I feel more empowered.

I'm not there yet but I hope one day to have things sorted out, right now I honestly don't understand my own sexuality. I do know that my sexual attraction towards men is meaningless, it is my ability to have a relationship with them that counts. I have not had a relationship with either a man or a woman, but I know that when the right one comes along things will make sense. I think that even after I get into a relationship I won't stop fantasizing about the other sex, but no matter what I wouldn't cheat on my partner because I'd love them too much to cheat.

I hope reading some of my story helps, and I'm sorry this ever happened to you. Just realize that you are not alone, no matter what the experience. We've all had some pretty terrible things done to us, and we are all here to find solace from those experiences. Take care, and may god bless you.

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